Earlier this month, a group of IT vendors and customers announced that they are forming an organization to promote standards for Java development tools. The group, known as the Java Tools Community (JTC), could significantly improve interoperability levels between the tools of different vendors. If the fledgling association is not careful, however, it could perpetuate the competitive divisions between Java vendors and make life more difficult for developers.
The JTC is the product of months of discussions between Sun Microsystems, BEA Systems, Oracle, Compuware, SAP, and several other vendors. The association has two major objectives. First, it will work with the Java Community Process (JCP)--the body that governs all Java standards--to enable development tools to take advantage of new standards and interfaces more easily. Second, it will create and promote standards that will allow Java tools from different vendors to interoperate with each other.
While the JTC's first objective is already receiving praise from the Java community, its second objective is making some developers nervous. That is because it raises the specter of the JTC competing with the Eclipse consortium over tool interoperability. This concern is only heightened by the fact that IBM--one of the cofounders of Eclipse and its major sponsor--is not part of the JTC. Word on the street has it that when the new organization approached IBM about joining, Big Blue declined. Many industry observers have also noted that the JTC announcement came only a month after Sun decided against joining the Eclipse consortium. This raises concerns about Sun's motivations for co-founding the JTC.
A Tale of Two Consortiums
It is likely that some of the vendors in the JTC want to prevent Eclipse from being the only association to set standards for Java tool interoperability. It is also likely that some Eclipse members see JTC membership as an unnecessary distraction from their real goal, which is to create an open-source development platform to compete with Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET. However, this does not mean that the two organizations cannot work together. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that they will do so and make Java tools more interoperable. Here are my reasons for believing that such cooperation is possible and even probable.
- Reason #1: Vendors with joint memberships. While Sun, BEA, and Compuware are not part of Eclipse, and IBM and Borland are not part of the JTC, other vendors (Embarcadero Technologies, Oracle, SAP, and SAS) belong to both associations. These vendors have a strong interest in harmonizing the efforts of the two groups. Developers should also note that IBM is part of the JCP. This is important because the JTC will work with the JCP to create tool interoperability standards. As a JCP member, IBM would likely support any such standards even though it is not a JTC member.
- Reason #2: Differing yet complementary objectives. While both Eclipse and the JTC want to improve tool interoperability, they are doing so in different ways that could work synergistically with each other. Eclipse has created an open-source framework across which both Java and non-Java tools can interoperate. However, Eclipse is not promoting its framework or interfaces as a formal industry standard. The JTC, by contrast, will develop and promote industry standards, but it will not develop any code or other intellectual property. As such, the JTC could take the interoperability technologies in the Eclipse code base and promote them as standards. Given the widespread support of Eclipse by Java tool vendors and developers, this would make sense.
- Reason #3: The increased independence of Eclipse. It is highly likely that within a matter of weeks, the Eclipse consortium will become an independent organization with its own internal governance and board of directors. This will give it greater freedom to form alliances that IBM has declined to pursue. Indeed, Skip McGaughey, the current chairman of Eclipse, has been quoted as saying that Eclipse is considering membership in the JTC as well as other development standards bodies.
Clearly then, there are good reasons to believe that relations between Eclipse and the JTC will be cordial at the least and highly cooperative at best. Both organizations understand that if they split over interoperability standards, they will fail to solve the major problem that bedevils Java developers: complexity. As a result, Java vendors would fail to win over hundreds of thousands of developers, therebying hand Microsoft a major victory for its .NET development platform.
Of course, there is a chance that despite their common interests, Eclipse and the JTC will choose to compete rather than cooperate. For politically motivated reasons, Eclipse could decide against joining the JTC, or Sun and BEA could steer the JTC toward developing standards that are incompatible with the Eclipse platform. Such actions would signal that the two organizations are being used by their sponsors to protect their market shares. That would be a disaster for the Java community.
In short, I would advise Java developers to watch what Eclipse and the JTC do in the coming weeks. We should know soon whether the two organizations will work together to build an infrastructure for Java tools or descend into petty arguments over the blueprints.
Lee Kroon is a Senior Industry Analyst for Andrews Consulting Group, a firm that helps mid-sized companies manage business transformation through technology. You can reach him at
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